The Strategic Planning Office was on the fifteenth floor of Taeseong Group headquarters.
This gathering place for the brains behind dozens of affiliates that kept South Korea moving had now split into two separate hells.
"You sons of bitches! Where did you move all of Taeseong Securities' short-term call money? We don't have the money to cover tomorrow's payments!"
Beyond the partitions, the area occupied by Strategic Planning Team 2, which oversaw financial matters, was in chaos.
Department Head Jang, the head of Team 2, hurled his receiver away and let loose a string of vicious curses.
Bundles of documents lay scattered across the floor, and the working staff clutched their telephones, screaming with bloodshot eyes.
"S-sir! The merchant banks have all started calling in their funds, and our cash is drying up! If the money isn't deposited before three, the securities division's settlements will……!"
"Shut up and cover them! Borrow from loan sharks or drain the dollars from our overseas branches. Cover them, whatever it takes!"
The tidal wave of financial turmoil had struck without warning.
The dollar drought, beyond even the conglomerates' usual means of control, had paralyzed these elites' reason.
Meanwhile, in the area occupied by 'Team 1,' to which I belonged, responsible for construction and heavy industry, an eerie, chilling stillness prevailed, as though we were in the eye of the storm.
"……Baek. Your judgment was right."
Department Head Park murmured as he pushed up his glasses with a trembling hand.
The preemptive freeze on promissory note payments to construction subcontractors, including Jinsan Construction, had preserved headquarters' liquidity.
"Even the head of the Strategic Planning Office breathed a sigh of relief that we'd protected the construction side's cash. Without you, we'd be in the same state as Team 2."
His voice betrayed a vicious selfishness that went far beyond relief.
He gave no thought to the hell engulfing the dozens of subcontractors they had sacrificed as shields.
The nature of conglomerates was as disgustingly consistent now as it had been in my previous life.
Of course, I was hardly in a position to criticize, having exploited it better than anyone.
RUMBLE-.
A vibration like the cry of a beast traveled through the floor.
I approached the window and peered through the blinds at the plaza outside the ground-floor lobby.
From fifteen floors up, the uproar reached me as little more than a low, droning noise.
But the screams at the scene poured unfiltered from the security team's wall-mounted radio speaker.
"You devils! We trusted Taeseong and didn't even insist on our progress payments! Get whoever's in charge out here!"
"You took all our books, and now you're blocking payment?! Then we can all die together!"
The ground-floor lobby and plaza were a vision of hellish pandemonium.
Men howled as the guards blocking the entrance seized them by their collars.
They were the presidents of partner companies that had immediately defaulted despite being profitable after Taeseong Construction froze payments.
Screams and the crash of shattering glass came over the radio.
The lobby floor would be littered with promissory notes worth billions of won, now no better than wastepaper.
A familiar voice was mingled with the wailing.
President Choi of Jinsan Construction, who had offered me premium green tea with an obsequious smile only a short time earlier.
CLICK.
I switched off the radio.
Sympathy?
I had discarded that luxurious emotion when I was strangled to death with a leather strap in my previous life.
They were merely sacrifices to a vast ruin that would swell my capital.
"Baek. Come to my office for a moment."
"Yes, sir."
I rose from my seat and hurried after the department head.
As soon as we entered, he sat down and got straight to the point.
"As I said earlier, thanks to you, most of the affiliates we oversee have weathered the immediate crisis. The people upstairs were impressed by your report too."
Department Head Park tapped the mountain of subcontractor lists and promissory note ledgers piled on his desk.
It was an extraordinary show of favor toward a new employee he would ordinarily never have spared a glance.
"That useless bastard Manager Oh is sniveling because his stocks have lost half their value. And Deputy Department Head Kim can't even grasp the situation, let alone deal with it. All he does is spout nonsense."
His eyes flashed sharply.
"A crisis makes it perfectly clear who's actually useful."
It was uncompromising meritocracy, ruthlessly disregarding cumbersome ranks.
Or perhaps it was a predator's instinct to replace its hounds as the need arose.
"Effective immediately, you will take full charge of handling defaults and liquidations among Team 1's construction and heavy industry subcontractors."
"……Me, sir?"
'Oh? This is unexpected.'
Department Head Park suddenly leaned toward me and spoke in a low, vicious murmur.
"You heard what was happening downstairs over the radio, didn't you? Someone has to get covered in shit and blood and bear the brunt of all that resentment."
"……."
"The sites that have stopped because those companies collapsed—get them running again immediately, even if you have to bleed the other subcontractors dry to fill the gaps. If the construction schedule slips or a legal dispute erupts, you're the one taking the bullets and all the blame."
He plainly wanted a shield he could discard to protect himself.
But he did not forget to offer a carrot.
"In return, if you act as my hands and feet and handle it cleanly, I'll make sure you're rewarded. I could even make you an assistant manager straight away. Well? Will you do it?"
It was a cunning offer: dangle an assistant manager's title before a new employee and keep himself clean.
But this assignment meant something different to me.
It was nothing less than the 'key to the slaughterhouse,' allowing me to choose the richest cuts of meat and strip them from the bone at will.
Department Head Park probably thought he was making good use of a fine hound.
All I needed to do was turn the blade of authority he had handed me toward Taeseong's heart.
"You can trust me with it, sir."
"I will personally excise them without costing headquarters a single won or spattering it with a single drop of blood."
I bowed with impeccable courtesy and accepted the liquidation file bearing a red 'URGENT' label.
As I left the department head's office, I encountered Manager Oh, who had crawled out of the break room with badly swollen eyes.
The arrogance of the man who had always hurled approval folders at me and shouted abuse was nowhere to be seen.
"B-Baek Do-jin, you…… Why do you have those documents……?"
"The department head's orders. He told me to take sole charge of all construction subcontracting matters."
I gave a faint laugh and added,
"He said you should concentrate on protecting your stock portfolio in the break room."
I tapped the rigid Manager Oh's shoulder with cold indifference and walked past him.
Such was the ruthless capitalist ecosystem of 1997.
A predator who had proved his worth and a loser left behind could exchange places this completely.
I heard his feeble groan behind me, but I did not turn around.
Back at my desk, I immediately opened the subcontractor list and picked up the telephone.
It was time to use the 'authority' the department head had given me to unleash a bloodbath.
"Yes. This is Baek Do-jin from Taeseong's Strategic Planning Office. Nahyeong Construction, correct? Send workers to the site where Jinsan Construction's work has stopped, starting tomorrow morning."
"Pardon?! B-but if we suddenly reassign our workers, our own construction work will stop…… H-how will we be paid?"
"We will issue three-month promissory notes. Is that not to your liking?"
"Not cash, but notes payable in three months? The merchant banks have all closed. How are we supposed to use those……!"
"If you are unhappy, refuse. Just understand that you will never see another scrap of Taeseong's civil engineering work again."
It was the unrestrained tyranny of the party holding absolute power.
With their immediate liquidity drying up, the subcontractor presidents had no choice but to swallow the bitter pill, submit to my threats, and begin filling the gap Jinsan Construction had left.
Without spending a single won of headquarters' funds, I stripped flesh and bone from my target and took complete control of operations in the Strategic Planning Office.
Around the time Jeong Min-jae, looking like a soulless zombie, left for the day, I put on my coat too.
After work,
I turned up my coat collar and headed for the foreign brokerage W Securities in central Yeouido.
When I opened the glass doors, the trading hall beyond was a cauldron of madness—a living hell.
"You've received a margin call! Unless you top up your margin right now, we'll forcibly liquidate your position at its lower price limit in tomorrow morning's opening call auction!"
"You crazy bastard! The merchant banks have closed, and I can't get a loan. Where am I supposed to find cash? I'm about to lose all my money!"
Telephones rang without pause.
An enormous quotation board flashed red and blue in a dizzying blur.
Yeouido's fund managers stood pale and hollow-eyed, chain-smoking.
These were the elites who, until yesterday, had popped champagne in blind faith that the giants were too big to fail and the market would only rise.
Tonight, they would probably be loosening their ties on Mapo Bridge in despair.
Soundproof walls completely shut out the pandemonium outside.
This was W Securities' VIP dealing room, furnished with the finest leather sofas.
The branch manager, who had been shouting himself hoarse while driving retail investors out of the trading hall only moments earlier, now personally served me freshly brewed coffee and bowed obsequiously before me.
"Here is my passbook."
THUD-.
I took the foreign currency passbook showing a balance of 110,000 dollars from my inner pocket and tossed it onto the table.
It was my first seed money, which I had converted entirely into dollars at 914 won a month earlier by exploiting Assistant Manager Kim's dirty secret at Taeseong Bank.
The won was becoming wastepaper, and even merchant banks were failing one after another as their foreign currency ran dry.
Cash dollars were the most potent form of gold, and absolute power itself.
The branch manager checked the balance and swallowed hard.
"Y-your dollar deposit is confirmed! Sir, the exchange rate has been soaring and has now broken through 1,150 won. First, we will convert all the dollars in this foreign currency account into won, then use approximately 126 million won to purchase options as soon as the market opens tomorrow."
He cautiously continued his market briefing.
"Now that the government has officially applied for a bailout, quite a few buy (Long) orders are queued for tomorrow's opening, aiming to catch a short-term technical rebound on the view that uncertainty has actually been resolved……."
"No."
I coldly cut through his predictable briefing.
"KOSPI 200 index options. Put the entire amount into 'December-expiry deep out-of-the-money (Deep OTM) put options.'"
The branch manager's hand stopped dead over the order form.
His eyes widened as though he were looking at someone who had lost his mind.
A put option was a derivative that let its holder bet on the index falling.
Among those, a 'deep out-of-the-money (Deep OTM)' option, with a strike price far below the current index, was practically a lottery ticket.
These were December contracts, with expiry close at hand.
Unless the index plunged through the basement beneath the floor, the entire 120 million won would become worthless paper in a month. It was a gamble taken to the extreme.
The branch manager's trembling fingers hovered uncertainly over the order form.
The financial markets of 1997 were still naive, not yet having fully tasted the cruelty of derivatives, and in his eyes, I was merely a madman burning his entire fortune on a reckless whim.
At a strike price of 52.5, the current index had to plunge before the trade could make a profit.
It was, quite literally, a bet that would only pay off if the gates of hell opened.
If the index merely moved sideways, or even fell just a little less than necessary, the options would evaporate at expiry without returning a single won. I was staking everything on ‘truly worthless scraps of paper.’
"S-sir! Even so, this is suicide! The government has applied for a bailout, so the market will rebound soon. Yet you want to stake your entire fortune on it falling beneath the basement?!"
It was the typical reaction of a foolish elite intoxicated by the anesthetic the government had handed out under the name 'IMF.'
They had no idea that what the country had been administered was not a cure, but the poison of high interest rates and mass layoffs.
For those preparing a party under the hallucination of optimism, all that awaited was a devastating hangover.
"A rebound? Don't be ridiculous."
"……Pardon?"
"The real hell is only just beginning. Stop arguing and put the full amount into those options."